Brownback said during his campaign that he would not cut spending on public education. Now, he says, the spending on K-12 education is “unsustainable.” He says schools cannot remain “untouched” in budget cuts…Many conservative legislators, like Merrick, don’t care about the impending deficit…Finally, they can shrink government — including school spending — and get what they have wanted all along.

Perhaps there is a way to cut school spending and skirt the courts, as well as confuse Kansans. Brownback knows the people of Kansas would rise up if the per-pupil costs were cut any more than they already have been. Plus, the courts would go berserk.

So, he has come up with a clever way to do an end run, and, thus, muddle the issue. He would overhaul or even eliminate the complicated school finance formula that determines how much each school district receives.

Even we dummies know what this inevitably will mean. In the course of either rewriting or ejecting the formula, the bottom line will result in a considerable haircut — no, make that a scalping — to school spending.

You can be assured, whether anyone writes a simple version in book form, that bad things are coming, particularly to schools.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/steve-rose/article8025033.html#storylink=cpy